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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Paramount's decision to pull "GI Joe: Retaliation" from its scheduled release date last summer to convert the film into 3-D appears to have paid off. The film topped the Easter weekend box office with a $41.2 million haul.

Friday, March 29, 2013

You can't get more pro-abortion than this far-left Pennsylvania Democrat, who is planning to run for governor of Pennsylvania in 2014. What is going to promise? Free abortions for everyone! Talk about a one-issue candidate.

Further proof that liberals do more harm than good when they push their failed socialist agenda. From The Christian Science Monitor: In a new study, the International Monetary Fund takes aim at energy subsidies, a common practice by countries to help the poor or benefit consumers and industry. The costs far outweigh any benefits, especially for the poor, finds the IMF.

Next time Obama talks about a recovery, somebody should throw a shoe at him. More than 5.4 million Americans are collecting unemployment checks and more than 10 million have given up looking for work while the Obama Recession continues.

Obama truly is the Food Stamp President: Enrollment in the food stamp program — officially the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — has soared by 70 percent in the years since President Obama first took office, a new report finds.

Talk about chutzpah: The man who made voter fraud an art form to win in 2008 and 2012 has signed an executive order to investigation voting problems in the U.S. The biggest voting problem we have is electing an nincompoop like Barack Obama.

Why bother? None of Obama's first 4 budgets received a single vote in Congress. I'm not sure Obama even knows what a budget is, considering each of his first four budgets were at least $1 trillion in the red. That kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a budget, doesn't it?

Although much ado has been made about the Republican Party's need to reach out to emerging constituent groups amid the mainstream media's caterwauling about the need for conservatives to moderate, it is the agenda of the Left that has stalled — especially at the state level.

The re-election of President Barack Obama, which supposedly heralded a new era of progressive (i.e.; Left-wing) government, has actually been limited to the usurpation of congressional power by the executive branch. Despite Democratic control of the U.S. Senate and a RINO-run House of Representatives, Congress has done little more this session than raise taxes on every American.

At the state level, where the GOP controls 30 of the 50 state governorships, the conservative agenda is advancing. This has been particularly true in the upper Midwest where Michigan and Indiana have become Right-to-Work states and Wisconsin enacted legislation that diminished the power of public sector labor unions.

Proof that the Left is losing comes from the fact that when they fail to accomplish their policy goals by engaging in serious debate, they turn to bully tactics and even violence. Regrettably, both are escalating.

As the Pennsylvania House of Representatives considered a bill to privatize the state's antiquated monopoly liquor store system advocates of change staged a news conference in the Capitol Rotunda. As David Taylor of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association spoke, he was shouted down by Wendell Young, President of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The spectacle was caught on video, posted on the internet and went viral. Young's thuggish antics, revealed for all to see, backfired. The House voted for privatization.

Union angst led to violence several months ago when the construction site of a Quaker Meeting House in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill was torched. The vandalism occurred after unions objected to the hiring of a merit shop (non-union) construction firm. The act was particularly ironic given the fact Quakers are noted for their adherence to non-violence.

Radical environmentalists have also gotten in on the act. The Left has been unable to stop the development of the Marcellus Shale gas field. Gas production has been an economic boom to parts of Pennsylvania, much to the dismay of the environmentalists. Unable to stop the development, shots were fired recently at a Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Witness said the shots came from a pick-up truck whose occupants were shouting obscenities.

It is not just Republicans who have been targeted. A few weeks ago Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter attempted to give his annual budget address to the city council. Union members created such a disturbance the Mayor was forced to abandon his speech. Highlighting their lack of intellectual ability, the unions towed a giant rat and a photograph of the mayor doctored to look like Bozo the clown to the event. All of this occurred because the mayor, facing budget constraints, would not yield to union contract demands.

Such behavior by unions and other components of the Left is likely to become more common. The fact is organized labor is on the verge of becoming extinct in the private sector, leaving the public arena as the venue for its last stand. Taxpayers have grown weary of paying government salaries larger than their own, and the Great Obama Recession has resulted in smaller or no pay hikes, under-employment and stubbornly high unemployment.

The fact is government employees are not exempt from the factors at play in the general economy. And, when opportunities such as Marcellus Shale development present themselves, most Americans opt for a balance allowing for development of such resources with appropriate environmental safeguards.

Despite the Left's chest-thumping over results of last November's elections, it is becoming increasingly clear the nation is gravitating to a more conservative policy path. Lacking the ability to make their case through rational argument, the Left is turning increasingly to violent and uncivil acts.
As the pendulum swings back toward more rational economic policy, look for advocates of big government to continue losing ground. Regrettably, their boorish behavior is likely to get worse, rather than better, as they watch their efforts fail.

(Lowman S. Henry is Chairman CEO of the Lincoln Institute and host of the weekly Lincoln Radio Journal. His e-mail address is lhenry@lincolninstitute.org.)

Your money isn't really your money in a socialist regime. Cypriots cannot have access to their own money until the bankers and the socialist politicians get to steal their share of it. Coming soon to America?

A good move by Gov. Corbett. The court currently has six members and is prone to tie votes because one of the Republicans on the court, Chief Justice Ron Castille, is from Philadephia, which means he's a Republican In Name Only and often sides with the Democrats. In fact, if the court had all seven voting members last year, the Voter ID bill would have been ruled constitutional. Instead, Castille sided with the Dems and essentially killed the bill.

The problem for Corbett is that the Republican-controlled Senate, which needs to confirm the nomination by a two-thirds margin, is divided 27-23 so that means the governor will need some Democrats to vote yes on the new justice.

The interim justice would serve until a full-time justice is elected in 2015.

So what would I do if I was the governor?

I'd nominate a seasoned member of the Senate who is a lawyer. (Montgomery County's John Rafferty?) It would be harder for Dems to oppose someone in their own chamber ... and it would hold out a political bone to Dems of possibly adding another Democrat to the Senate in 2014.

REALITY CHECK FOR ALL LOW-INFORMATION OBAMA VOTERS: New report predicts massive increases in health care premiums under Obamacare: From The Associated Press: The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland.

In 2009, as health care reform was being considered in Congress, Gallup asked Americans what they wanted out of potential legislation. Eighty-three percent of Americans said that it was either extremely or very important that legislation make health insurance more affordable. When asked whether expanding coverage or making health care more affordable was more important, the majority of Americans said the priority should be bringing down costs.

According to many studies, Americans pay more for health care but get less. Health care keeps eating more and more into family budgets. While wages haven’t increased very much, health costs keep rising at or above inflation. In fact, for some Americans health insurance premiums could skyrocket in the coming years.

The Affordable Care Act might have been a good poll-tested name for the health reform bill, but the actual content of the bill has done little to actually make care more affordable. This week, the Energy and Commerce Committee released a joint report demonstrating how the law is increasing costs for young adults and middle class families.

The report compiles data from over 30 studies of how the law is affecting real people. Behind these statistics are real families. When government actions increase their health costs, they have to make painful decisions. For some that might mean cancelling a vacation but for others high medical costs eventually lead to bankruptcy. Very few Americans think they should be spending more of their paycheck on health insurance. Unfortunately, the new health law is making that decision for them.

Perhaps the most broken sector of the health insurance market is what is known as the individual market. The individual market is where people go when they don’t get insurance from an employer. Prior to the new health law, many Americans already found insurance in the individual market to be too expensive.

All of these plans were already regulated at the state level, but the new law adds a new layer of federal government regulation. This new layer of red tape has significant costs. In places like Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa and Ohio premiums in the individual market could double in the coming years. Here in Pennsylvania, the premium increase is expected to be 39 percent.

In addition to the added federal government red tape, the new law imposes a wide array of taxes on health insurance plans, drugs and medical devices. Over $165 billion in new taxes and fees are either here now or on their way soon.

The tax on medical devices is known as an excise tax, meaning that a company has to pay it even if it is not profitable. Excise taxes are usually only leveled on products that the government wants to discourage, like cigarettes and alcohol. This tax will discourage the development of new devices and make current medical devices more expensive for consumers.

Most importantly, purchasing health insurance is no longer optional. Families have to buy coverage or face the new IRS-imposed penalty. Many Americans will face a catch-22 where they have to buy insurance, but because of the greatly increased costs won’t be able to afford it. They will have to face the penalty and still go without care.

We can do better. For most people, looking at a health care bill is daunting. The costs don’t seem to make much sense, but they are trapped in a system. Under the new law, that feeling of entrapment will only grow. Health insurers are consolidating. Health systems are buying up individual practices and hospitals. Choices and competition are being reduced.

We need the government to give workers the same tax advantages for purchasing health care. They need to be able to own their insurance plan and take it with them.

We need reform that puts families and doctors in charge of health care decisions, not government bureaucrats or insurance companies. Right now, car insurance companies are fighting for your business. If you don’t like your insurer, it is easy to drop their coverage and go with someone else. Americans need that kind of control in health insurance. They are not getting it under the new law.

Imagine being a Congressional Democrat who voted for Obamacare and having to run for re-election in 2014 after many of the provisions of Obamacare are in place. Republicans have a very good chance of winning the Senate and expanding their majority in the House in 2014.

On this day in 1821, Greece declared its independence from the Ottoman Turks, beginning an 11-year struggle to drive the Turks from the Greek mainland. Tens of thousands of Greeks fought and died to restore freedom to the birthplace of Democracy. Ζήτω η Ελλάς!

A fantastic production of "Hairspray" this
weekend by Antietam Musical Productions featuring the students of the
Antietam Middle/Senior High School. Pictured is Kat Krohn as Amber Von
Tussle and James Phyrillas as Harriman F. Spritzer. Tickets ($10) are
still available for the 2 p.m. Sunday show at Mount Penn Primary Center,
201 N. 25th St., Mount Penn, PA 19606.

Daylin Leach, a far-left state lawmaker in Pennsylvania, has introduced a bill to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Pennsylvania. He doesn't see any harm to making pot available to more people and taxing it so the state could spend more money. In today's edition of The Pottstown Mercury, you can read about an 18-year-old driver under the influence of marijuana who struck and killed a 40-year--old mother of two while she was was jogging in Limerick, Pa. This case, Sen. Leach, is reason enough why your bill to legalize pot use should never see the light of day.

Panel topics include session on Broadening the Conservative Coalition, Unleashing the Economic Potential of Penn's Woods, Freedom to Work, and a State IssuesRoundtable. There will also be three workshop sessions focusing on Using Social Media; The 10th Amendment and States' Rights and Citizen Lobbying.

It's OK to steal other people's money as long as the government uses it for the common good, says the socialist mainstream media. Tell that to the Cypriot people who are being held up by the socialist politicians who run the EU. And will the socialist media fell the same way when the government dips into their bank accounts?

It's bad enough Pennsylvania spends more on welfare each year ($11 billion) than it does for public education, but now there's a campaign to drop the word "welfare" from the Department of Welfare so people collecting welfare payments won't be offended.

A Philadelphia-area state lawmaker wants to change the name of the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare to the Department of Human Services so the millions of people on welfare don't have live with the "stigma" of receiving welfare payments.

This
year's Antietam Middle-Senior High School musical, "Hairspray," will be
performed March 22-23-24 at the Mount Penn Primary Center, 201 N. 25th
St., Mt. Penn, PA. "Hairspray" tickets are on sale now in the
Middle-Senior High School main lobby each day after school from 3-4 PM.
(You can see updated seating charts and choose the seats you would
like.) All tickets are $10 and are reserved seating. The school expects
to break all attendance records, so tickets will most likely not be
available at the door for the performances Friday and Saturday, March 22
and 23, at 7 PM and Sunday, March 24, at 2 PM. This is the first time a
Berks County school is staging "Hairspray" so be part of history by
buying your tickets now. For more information, call the school at
610-779-3545.

Despite poor reviews, "Oz The Great and Powerful" continues to dominate the domestic box office. The film has taken in $145 million in its first two weeks of releaswe in the U.S. It's also a huge hit overseas.

Starring James Franco, the prequel to "The Wizard of Oz" still has a ways to go to earn back its $215 million productions costs, but it's headed in the right direction. The film was director by Sam Raimi (of the original "Spiderman" series fame).

The high costs and exploding bureaucracy that Americans will face starting in 2014 will lead most to revolt against the government takeover of health care, predicts Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute and one of the leading policy-based critics of Obamacare.

This year's Antietam Middle-Senior High School musical, "Hairspray," will be performed March 22-23-24 at the Mount Penn Primary Center, 201 N. 25th St., Mt. Penn, PA. "Hairspray" tickets are on sale now in the Middle-Senior High School main lobby each day after school from 3-4 PM. (You can see updated seating charts and choose the seats you would like.) All tickets are $10 and are reserved seating. The school expects to break all attendance records, so tickets will most likely not be available at the door for the performances Friday and Saturday, March 22 and 23, at 7 PM and Sunday, March 24, at 2 PM. This is the first time a Berks County school is staging "Hairspray" so be part of history by buying your tickets now. For more information, call the school at 610-779-3545.

How do you provide "free" health care to 30 million people? Bill the rest of us for it. That's appears to be the secret to Obamacare.

From The Associated Press:

The nation’s big health insurers say they expect premiums — or the cost for insurance coverage — to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) roll out in January 2014.

Why are liberals such hypocrites? Debt mattered while George W. Bush was president, but Obama piles on another $6 trillion debt, and it's no longer a concern? How stupid do you have to be to continue to believe Obama's lies?

Joined by a bipartisan coalition of state legislators in Harrisburg Tuesday, state Rep. Jim Cox (R-129) and state Sen. David G. Argall (R-29) unveiled the Property Tax Independence Act, a proposal to completely replace school district property taxes.

The more taxpayer dollars Pennsylvania hands out to colleges and universities, the higher the tuition costs rise. Maybe if colleges had to compete like businesses do in the real world, the cost of higher education would come down.

Another Democratic politician convicted of corruption, but The Associated Press forgets to mention anywhere in the story that the former mayor of Detroit was a Democrat. This happens all the time. When a Republican is in trouble, it's in the first paragraph. When a Democrat breaks the law, the MSM never mentions his/her political affiliation. Another example of Liberal Media Bias 101.

Friday, March 08, 2013

The divide between the taxpayers and the political class continues to grow.

Under the Obama Administration, more and more government workers feel they don't have to pay their "fair share" of taxes.

Nearly 312,000 federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.5 billion in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2011, according to the IRS. The year before, about 279,000 workers and retirees owed $3.4 billion, the agency reports.

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute throws some cold water on the release of the February unemployment numbers. Pethokoukis notes that the broader U-6 unemployment rate, which is a more accurate way of measuring the nation's work force, stands at 14.3% unemployment.

Don't be too impressed with the latest government unemployment report.

John Steele Gordon at Commentary Magazine:

Worse, the workforce participation rate, the percentage of the working-age population that is actually working, is only 63.5 percent. At the start of the recession it was 66 percent. In other words, millions of people have dropped out of the labor force. If they had not, the unemployment rate would be over 10 percent.

THORNS to President Obama for announcing this week that he is closing the White House to public tours because of the sequestration. This is a petty and thinly-veiled strategy by Obama to put pressure on members of Congress, who arrange the popular tours of the White House for their constituents. Obama didn't get what he wanted in negotiations with Congress over spending cuts and tax hikes, so he's resorted to punishing school children and other tourists visiting Washington, D.C., in the coming months. "Due to staffing reductions resulting from the sequester, we regret to inform you that White House tours are canceled effective Saturday, March 9, until further notice," the administration informed House and Senate offices. "We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular spring touring season." There's plenty of government spending to be cut in Washington, but shuttering the doors of the White House to the American people should not be on that list. Reports that the tours are run by volunteers and the cost of having extra security is minimal reinforce suspicion that Obama canceled the tours out of spite. It's another example of Obama's unpresidential behavior when he doesn't get his way.

Thursday, March 07, 2013

"So let's say there are people going from a Constitution Party meeting to a Libertarian Party meeting. Both these groups don't like big government. They hate big government ... They are nonviolent as far as I know, but they were on the fusion list for potential terrorists," Paul said, referring to a Department of Homeland Security report tagging anti-abortion activists; border advocates; supporters of Rand's father, Ron Paul; and others as potential members of paramilitary groups that law enforcement should monitor. "Are we going to kill people in a caravan going from one meeting to the next?"

It begins. The Obama/Congressional Democrats campaign to disarm law-abiding Americans kicks off today with the Senate Judiciary Committee voting 11-7 to approve a gun control measure. All the 'yes' votes were cast by Democrats. RINO Charles Grassley of Iowa was the only Republican to vote in favor of the bill.

Following Obama's lead on piling up massive debt, US consumer borrowing rose $16.2 billion in January to a total of $2.8 trillion. Here's a frightening fact: One-third of the United State's $17 trillion national debt has been accumulated during the Obama Administration.

A frightening editorial in Investor's Business Daily about the Obama Administration stockpiling weapons and ammunition for possible action against the American people.

What possible use would Obama have for spending billions of dollars to create a para-military force within the Department of Homeland Security?

A military takeover by a man who insists he's not a dictator?

From the editorial:

In
addition to stockpiling over a billion bullets and thousands of
semiautomatic weapons the feds would deny U.S. citizens, the vehicle of
choice for fighting the counterinsurgency war in Iraq is appearing on
U.S. streets.

So the question is what does DHS need 1.6 billion bullets, 7,000 Ar-15s and 2,700 armored vehicles for?

What are they anticipating or planning for, and why are few in the
media and Congress asking about it, particularly in the light of daily
apocalyptic bleats from the administration about sequestration cuts?

Excellent editorial in The Altoona Mirror about Pennsylvania's new Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who continues to push her partisan agenda instead of representing the best interests of Pennsylvania residents:

From the editorial:

If Kane declines to defend the voter ID law, that job would fall to the governor's Office of General Counsel.

Given Kane's ambivalence on the law, perhaps the Office of General Counsel would present a stronger defense of the measure.

But
that also would show just how partisan Kane is in her job, and that
will only result in a further lack of confidence that she is putting
Pennsylvania's needs above her party's.

Among the highlights from this year's list of the world's richest: Obama pal Warren Buffett dropped out of the top three for the first time since 2000, and another Obama pal, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg saw his ranking drop 31 spots as his net worth declined by $4.2 billion.

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Why Politics Matter

“Politics, the crooked timber of our communal lives, dominates everything because, in the end, everything – high and low and, most especially, high – lives or dies by politics. You can have the most advanced and efflorescent of cultures. Get your politics wrong, however, and everything stands to be swept away. This is not ancient history. This is Germany 1933.” –– Charles Krauthammer

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About Me

Tony A. Phyrillas is a leading conservative columnist, commentator and blogger based in Pennsylvania.
A veteran newspaperman with 33 years experience as a reporter, editor, photographer and columnist, Phyrillas received a first place award in 2010 for best column from the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors and a first place award in 2007 for Best Opinion Column from Suburban Newspapers of America. He was recognized for column writing in 2007 by the Society of Professional Journalists, Keystone Chapter and in 2006 by the SPJ Greater Philadelphia Chapter.
Phyrillas is ranked among the most influential political bloggers in Pennsylvania by BlogNetNews.com.
Odyssey: The World of Greece magazine named Phyrillas one of the leading Greek-American bloggers in the world.
A Penn State University graduate, Phyrillas is the editor/content manager of The Mercury, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning daily newspaper in Pottstown, Pa.
Phyrillas made frequent appearances on talk radio and as a panelist on the "Journalists Roundtable" program on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.
He co-hosted a weekly radio program on WPAZ 1370 AM for 2 years.